Category: Austria, Croatia & Italy 2015

Last year in May, Anna and I went on a cycling trip through north-western Istria to visit some of its finest wineries. The article I wrote about it was published two months ago in the Dutch National Geographic Traveler. Anna was pregnant during that trip and therefore couldn’t try any of the wines I enjoyed so much. We took some bottles home with us, but they are also finished by now. So what to do then? Since we had to go to Croatia to close Anna’s bank account anyway, we planned two days for wine drinking in Istria earlier this week!

In the summer of 2013 Anna found a job as a German lector at the University of Rijeka and so we moved there. The first thing we noticed upon our arrival in Rijeka – the principal seaport and third-largest city in Croatia – was the absolutely stunning view from the balcony of our apartment. We immediately knew we would enjoy living here. And indeed, life was good: we adjusted very well to the relaxing Croatian way of living, made ourselves familiar with traditional food and regional wines, got used to living on the coast and made good friends. Then Anna got pregnant and things changed. In a nutshell: Anna’s employer wasn’t very supportive of this whole family-thing we were creating. Furthermore, our first impression of the Croatian health care system and the hospital in Rijeka wasn’t very positive. The fact that we didn’t speak the language made things even more complicated. All things considered, we decided to move back to the Netherlands. Now, almost a year later, we return to the place where Bowser was made…